Office Furniture NOW!

1930’s Doctor’s Exam Tables have history

Office Furniture NOW! — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 20:44:56 +0000

We have available two antique 1930’s era walnut medical exam tables that we picked up from the Union Pacific Railroad Headquarters auction in Omaha Nebraska. They built a new building and furnished it with brand new furniture, leaving lots of fine old wood furniture available for purchase. Leather has been replaced and wood has been refinished. Wonderful conversation pieces. The drawers slide all the way through for easy access on either side. They would be a great gift for the doctor or nurse in your family or anyone who cherishes furniture from another era.

PostingID: 1659079578

Office Furniture NOW! nominated for the 2010 City of Austin Environmental Awareness Award in the Small Business Category

Office Furniture NOW! — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:09:10 +0000

Austin Energy, one of the more progressive city energy departments in the country, sponsors this annual award. Read the following reasons why we think we’re a strong candidate for this award and not just your average office furniture company

Describe the project and how it is a creative solution to an environmental problem

Day in and day out, since Office Furniture NOW! was incorporated thirteen years ago, the company has been reducing the amount of solid waste – including hazardous waste – that has been going to the landfill. By selling pre-owned office furniture – including chairs, filing cabinets, desks and cubicles – we have kept this office furniture from filling up the landfill. We have contributed to the feeling amongst our clients – which are all sizes and types of Austin businesses – that reusing office furniture “as is” or buying refurbished office furniture (pre-owned office furniture that has been upgraded with new fabric, paint and/or accessories) is a financially, aesthetically and environmentally wise option. Our business model is “the project” that is a creative solution to an environmental problem.

Office Furniture NOW! provides an Austin venue to which businesses can sell the furniture they no longer want and from which they can buy replacement furniture that another business no longer wants. For example, when Whole Foods built their new building at 5th & Lamar, we bought 105 workstations from them. These workstations have been sold over the years to 29 different companies.

Describe how the project makes significant contributions to the enhancement of our physical environment.

The office furniture business is a bulky business. A task chair takes up about 15 cubic feet of space; a desk set about 100 cubic feet. AND there’s a huge amount of cardboard and packaging materials that arrives with each new desk or chair. Office Furniture NOW! reduces the size of Austin’s landfill in two ways.

First, we reduce the volume of trash we do send to the landfill in several ways. When we have no choice but to send a piece of office furniture to the landfill, we first compact this solid waste with our own compactor. By doing this, we squash the office furniture to 25% of its original volume. Since opening our doors in 1997, Office Furniture NOW! has kept approximately 29,000 cubic feet of solid waste out of the landfill through our trash compacting efforts. Additionally, we responsibly recycle when we can. We compact metal and sell it to a commercial recycler, Commercial Metals, for about $500 per dumpster load. Additionally, we recycle packaging materials from new office furniture that we buy and resell. Packaging materials we recycle include cardboard (which we first compact), as well as foam and shrink wrap. A company called Recycled Plastics picks them up; we do not get paid for these items.

Second, we divert materials from the landfill by selling used office furniture, either “as is” or “refurbished “to Austin clients. The environmental problems created by office furniture are many. An industry trade group, OFDA (Office Furniture Distributors Association), states the following information in its brochure, “Recycled Office Furniture: Good for the Environment, Good for Your Business”:

“The EPA has estimated that approximately 3 million tons of office furniture and furnishings are discarded each year…..Re-manufacturing just 40 cubicles diverts one tractor-trailer load of furniture from a landfill.”

Since incorporating Office Furniture NOW! in 1997, we’ve resold 12,284 “as is” or “refurbished” cubicles. That means we’ve diverted 307 tractor trailer loads of just cubicles from the landfill. Add other pre-owned items like desks, credenzas, chairs, reception stations, conference tables and filing cabinets that we’ve sold (see the grid below) and that adds up to a lot of office furniture kept out of Austin’s landfill.

What are the measurable impacts the project has on environmental conditions and greenhouse gases?

Since incorporating our business in 1997 until today, we have sold the following used and refurbished pieces of office furniture:

Accessories – 88 items (264 cubic feet)
Antiques – 30 items (1,500 cubic feet)
Art – 16 items (32 cubic feet)
Audio-Visual – 193 items (3,860 cubic feet)
Bookcases – 1,435 items (28,700 cubic feet)
Computer Desks – 1,187 items (59,350 cubic feet)
Chairs, Side – 5,938 items (89,070cubic feet)
Conference Tables – 983 items (49,150 cubic feet)
Chairs, Tilt/Swivel – 8,382 items (167,640 cubic feet)
Desks – 4,423 items (442,300 cubic feet) note: a desk unit is 1.5 desks because it often includes a hutch, credenza and/or a return.
Electronics – 103 items (515 cubic feet)
Files – 7,329 items (219,870 cubic feet)
Break Room Tables – 127 items (1,905 cubic feet)
Cubicles – 12,284 items (982,720 cubic feet)
Other Furniture – 2,324 items (23,240 cubic feet)
Training Tables – 1,037 items (25,925 cubic feet)
Total Furniture Re-sold since in business: 46,503 items (2,158,441 cubic feet)

Landfill Saved by Office Furniture NOW! 1997-2010

Furniture Re-Sold 2,158,441 cubic feet
Metal Recycled 27,498 cubic feet
Compacted Waste (Savings) 29,150 cubic feet
Cardboard Recycled 2,916 cubic feet
Styrofoam Recycled 1,080 cubic feet
TOTAL Landfill Saved (cu ft) 2,219,085 cubic feet

Besides the benefit of reducing the volume of materials sent to the landfill, recycling office furniture reduces the pollution caused by the manufacturing process. Carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and particulate matter are all reduced by recycling office furniture. By reducing the amounts of these contaminants, global warming, acid rain, photochemical smog, and other forms of air pollution are also reduced. As far as I know, there are no office furniture manufacturers in Austin, Texas. However, as we all unfortunately know, air pollution is a universal problem that knows no city, state or national boundaries. Recycling office furniture reduces the amount of new office furniture that must be produced, reducing air pollution and greenhouse gases from these manufacturing processes.

OFDA also states in the abovementioned brochure:

“The amount of labor and energy required to alter an existing product during remanufacturing is 85 to 95 percent less than that required to manufacture a new product……For each pound of natural resources used in remanufacturing, 5-9 pounds of original materials are conserved!…..

Additionally, recycling office furniture “as is” or refurbishing it saves the enormous amounts of energy required for the production of new office furniture – particularly because metals (which form the inner structure of office cubicles and the majority of file cabinets) are kept out of the resmelting process.

How does the project promote public awareness or education?

Not only does the reselling of used office furniture – either “as is” or “refurbished” – offer clients a cost effective and environmentally sound alternative to new office furniture, it also sends a message to the Austin community that re-using products is a sound business choice and that there are alternative values to those of a “throw away” society. Below are only a few Austin companies, by general industry category, who have furnished their offices with refurbished cubicles from Office Furniture NOW!:

Energy
Pinnergy, LTD.
Tierra Energy
Texas Electric Cooperatives

Engineering
Austin GeoModeling
Carter & Burgess
Chiang Patel & Yerby

Financial & Insurance
American Bank of Texas
Brown & Brown Insurance
Guaranty Bank
Stewart Title
The Boon Group

Healthcare
American Physicians Service Group
Capital City Rehabilitation
Healthcare Facilities

Non-Profits
Planned Parenthood
The ARC of Texas

Technology
Ascendant Technology
Life Tech
Mystic Pharmaceuticals
Q2 Software
RF Code
Rocket Software
Teco-Westinghouse
Samsung
Storspeed

and hundreds more…..

On a daily basis, these companies’ officers and employees are sitting in cubicles that have been kept out of the landfill because they’ve bought refurbished cubicles locally available from Office Furniture NOW!

Does the project incorporate multiple entities or organizations to achieve its goals? If yes, please explain.

Office Furniture NOW! is a hub of activity; we buy pre-owned furniture from all over the country and from local Austin companies and resell it “as is” or refurbish it prior to reselling it to our clients. Since 1997 we have purchased used office furniture from 251 companies who do business in Austin and have sold pre-owned or refurbished office furniture to 2,458 companies and individuals. As the above chart shows, thousands of office workers are sitting in pre-owned chairs, desks and cubicles purchased from Office Furniture NOW!
Additionally, we utilize local subcontractors in the cubicle and furniture refurbishing processes and local companies in our recycling efforts.

Proven Comfort and Ergonomics – the Steelcase LEAP Chair.

Office Furniture NOW! — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:56:22 +0000

Steelcase LEAP chair showing flexible back

Given the number of hours most of us spend in office chairs in front of a computer, a good task chair is an investment in both the health of our backs and in our comfort. One office chair that we always try to keep in stock at Office Furniture NOW! is the Steelcase Leap Chair. Because we are not a Steelcase dealer, all our Leap Chairs are Pre-Owned “As is” or Refurbished. When we get a call because a company is selling their office furniture, we always show up to bid on Steelcase Leap Chairs. And here’s why…………………

They have six ergonomic features that contribute to improved well-being and productivity:

1. The chair has a “Live Back”. The back of the chair has little slats (look at the picture above) which can change the shape of the chair’s back to support your entire spine.

2. Upper and Lower back controls which, by the way, adjust while you are seated. The upper controls let you adjust the amount of “push back” desired while reclining, regardless of your body size. The lower back control lets your lower back maintain its natural curve by setting a constant amount of firmness.

3. The chair’s arms telescope, pivot, and adjust up and down for the optimum support of your wrists, forearms, shoulders and neck.

4. The seat glides forward as you recline so you can stay oriented to your work, allowing more varied postures – which is healthy for your spine.

5. The angle of the front seat edge is changeable, enabling you to ease the pressure on your thighs and widen the angle between your legs and torso without feeling like you’re sliding out of your chair.

6. Adjustable seat depth accommodates different body shapes for longterm comfort.

There is an article on the Steelcase website touting the benefits of buying a Steelcase Leap chair. Steelcase’s claim that sitting in the Leap chair enables IRS workers to collect 17.8% more taxes than those sitting in a different chair seems a little(!) farfetched but its claim that you’ll be more comfortable sitting in a Leap chair all day than sitting in most other chairs, seems convincing.

The C.E.O. of our company, Bill Coon, who could sit in any chair he wants, sits in a Pre-Owned “As Is” Steelcase LEAP chair. You can ask Bill how he likes it (512.444.4395 or bill@OfficeFurnitureNOW.com). You can also come try out the chair for yourself in our showroom. At this writing we have over 50 Leap chairs in stock. They last a really long time and are an extremely heavy-duty chair; so buying them pre-owned or refurbished will buy you years of body comfort. You can buy them at Office Furniture NOW! refurbished with brand new fabric for $445 or “as is” for $395. Either way, it beats the new price of over $1200.

The Cats of Office Furniture NOW!

Office Furniture NOW! — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:44:02 +0000

Office Furniture NOW! Located where we are in the South Austin Industrial District in a building built in the 1930’s with lots of nooks and crannies under it makes Office Furniture NOW a cat magnet. Vic, our webmaster and Pre-owned Office Furniture Buyer is keenly attuned to the outside world and, this winter, noticed many feral cats wandering our complex. Being bony and sporting coats with swathes of missing hair, he felt sorry for the cats and began to lure them closer with food and water. After weeks of daily feedings, he began to be able to pet them and decided to take action so no more stray cats came into being in our little corner of the world on South Congress. After calling many nonprofit animal organizations around town, he finally hooked up with EmanciPET and PAWS who spay and/or neuter the animals for low cost and then adopt them out if they are tame enough. If not, they are re-released with the reproductive cycle and threat of rabies checked.

LEEDS and Recycled Office Furniture

Office Furniture NOW! — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:34:57 +0000

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) , developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction. LEEDS certification is a big deal in the Architect and Design community. Because businesses building or upgrading their facilities want to show that they are an environmentally responsible business, LEEDS certification is important. Being awarded LEEDS Certification or, even better, Silver, Gold or – best of all – Platinum Certification is a huge deal that businesses can extol.

There are six areas in which LEEDS points are awarded. One of them is “Materials and Resources.” Out of the 100 total LEEDS points possible (110 with bonus points), this category is worth 14. The area applicable to pre-owned and refurbished office furniture is “Reuse of Existing Materials”. For using 5% salvaged or refurbished materials 1 point is earned; if you use 10% salvaged or refurbished materials 2 points are earned. More points may be awarded if the furniture was originally made out of recycled content, local materials, rapidly renewable materials, or certified wood.

Because Architects and Designers are often concerned with using the latest design concepts and furnishings available, these points available to earn for using salvaged or refurbished materials are often overlooked. However, being able to change fabrics, laminates and paint finishes and add glass stackers or other accessories – while still reusing the heavy steel and wood core that cubicles are made out of – reduces the usual reluctance to reuse “old” office furniture. Since specifying reburbished cubicles for your client will save them 30-50% compared to the cost of new furniture, there is another reason to select refurbished cubicles. With the added benefit of knowing that the furniture you are choosing to reuse will not go to the landfill, these are LEEDS points well worth earning.

Recycling Office Furniture

Office Furniture NOW! — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:51:53 +0000

Refurbished Cubicles look BRAND NEW!

What is Recycled Office Furniture?

Office Furniture is a recyclable product! Just because a desk or cubicle has “uglied out” over time, does not mean that it needs to be sent to the landfill. Remanufacturing, refurbishing, and/or reusing office furniture diverts it from the solid waste stream and sends it back out into the commercial world with a facelift. You can either supply your own furniture to be refurbished or purchase “new” remanufactured furniture – cubicles in particular – from a company like Office Furniture NOW! The benefits are many, including an average savings of 30 to 50 percent. Recycling office furniture is not only good for the environment but makes good business sense too.

So, what is the difference between recycled, remanufactured, refurbished and reused office furniture?

“Recycled office furniture” is a term often used for any post-consumer office furniture that has been diverted out of the solid waste stream and back into the market with or without repairs. This includes remanufactured, refurbished, and re-used (as is/used) office furniture, all of which are being used again. Desks, chairs, files and cubicles can all be recycled.

“Remanufactured office furniture” is recycled office furniture that has had value added to the product. Products are completely disassembled, parts are inspected, cleaned, repaired or replaced, reassembled and refinished to “like new” conditions, and returned to the market for sale. Cubicles are the most frequently remanufactured type of office furniture.

“Refurbished office furniture” is recycled office furniture that has had value added to the product by being “touched-up” or cosmetically improved and then returned to the market for sale.” Oftentimes, refurbished cubicles will include a blend of both new and touched-up components. For example, visible metal will be painted but upholstery will be replaced.

“Reused office furniture” (also knows as “used” or “as-is” or “pre-owned”) is recycled office furniture that has been returned to the market for sale without repair or improvement to its appearance.

No matter which of the above options you determine best fits your needs, be assured that any one of them is a choice that is better for the environment than purchasing brand new office furniture. When purchasing recycled office furniture, make sure your dealer tells you which components are new, refurbished or “as-is”. Also, check for the presence of important accessories like keys and file bars.